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Scan Logs Show That Sony Servers Were Running Extremely Dated Programs
and Web Services - Vulnerabilities of Obsolete Software Known for Years
on the Internet

HAMBURG, Germany, May 17 /CNW/ - It was the largest data theft ever: on
the 19th of April, hackers broke into Sony servers and stole the
personal information of more than 100 million customers. Highly
sensitive information available to the German magazine COMPUTER BILD
now reveals that the servers had massive security issues.

Internet activists of Anonymous, a worldwide secret organization,
provided COMPUTER BILD with logs of scans that they had performed on
Sony servers already before the data theft. Anonymous had launched
distributed denial-of-services (DDoS) attacks on the Sony servers as a
"stress test" to bring down the conglomerate's online services. To this
end, they scanned the servers for vulnerabilities. Logs of the scans
revealed glaring security holes.

The logs indicate that Sony was using outdated, and thus insecure,
software versions, the weaknesses of which had been documented on the
Internet for years. For example, Sony used the OpenSSH 4.4 service to
encrypt data communication - a version that permits unauthorized access
by attackers.

The current version, in which those holes have been closed, is 5.7.
Furthermore, some Sony servers were running the obsolete Apache version
2.2.10. The vulnerabilities in that version - which were eliminated in
2008 - permit DDoS and other attacks. The current version is 2.2.17.

Anonymous claims that it has nothing to do with the theft of personal
information of millions of users. But whoever stole the data, they did
not have to overcome any major obstacles in light of the glaring
security holes.

A number of PlayStation Network servers in Europe have been back online
since Sunday. Sony promises significantly higher security standards,
hopefully with the latest software this time.